Tag: retcon

The Dud Pool

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No worries there Bull, as it’s a safe bet that you won’t be finding any jokes around here. TFH has helpfully informed me that this “time pool” idiocy has something to do with (surprise) comic books, which (surprise) instantly caused my eyes to glaze over as usual. In case you’re newer around here, that’s Funky, Holly, Crazy, Lisa, DickFace, Cindy and Bull. You see, back “in the day” Crazy had a magical locker that opened up into a far-out stoner hangout room where he listened to pizzas on his turntable, played air guitar and apparently lived. No, I’m serious. It might have been helpful to take a day to explain this to newer FW readers. Ha, just kidding, as there are no newer FW readers.

Anyhow, as usual BanTom retcons the past all wrong, as Bull and Cindy never hung out with drips like Les and Lisa. In fact, I don’t remember Lisa EVER hanging with the gang in Act I, unless her water was breaking or whatever. Holly (sigh) did however always wear that dopey outfit, so that’s accurate at least.

Retcon Lisa is just as grating as she’s ever been, dropping a “topical” reference where she refers to Carl Sagan’s old PBS show that was all the rage back when she was alive and still childless. She was way uglier than that back then too. I prefer her dead anyhow, so maybe I’m biased. Perhaps we’ll get to capture a glimpse of what FW might have been like if TB had allowed her to survive. My guess is that it would have been just as boring, but with Lisa.

God Bless You Mary Sue, Wherever You Are

Link To Today’s Strip

This one’s a real puzzler. Why would BanTom resort to an Act I retcon job here? Les wasn’t a “published author” until a few years ago, so his retconned Mary Sue memory is less than totally irrelevant here, not to mention totally out of place. I think Mason was just trying to be polite, or perhaps it’s just nervousness over being forced to ride in that very unsafe-looking Batiukmobile while Les is all hunched over the steering wheel in a most peculiar way.

I can’t believe they’re already on their way to visit the Winkerbeans. I figured it’d take weeks if not months before the story progressed that far. Then again, you know he’s just chomping at the bit to get back to those comic book fantasies again. After all, it’s been like a week and a half since comic books were front and center. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and predict that we’ll see a big box of comic books by the end of the week. Call it a hunch.

It’s Called Writing-Up, People

Link To Today’s Strip

Another terrible joke in a terrible arc about two terrible characters from two terrible comic strips. What is the joke supposed to be here? Is the blonde student supposed to be someone I’m supposed to recognize or is it just the idea of a student reprimanding the two morons that’s supposed to be the gag? These jokes are getting alarmingly bad, like in a “you should see a doctor” kind of way. Hopefully this marks the end of the band convention arc because I don’t want to see how much worse this could potentially get.

The Wheels On The Bus Fall Off And Off

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What? I’m staring at this thing, trying to see if maybe I’m missing something but I can’t for the life of me figure out what the joke is supposed to be here. Did he mean to say “hearsed” in panel three? I mean yeah, that’s awful but at least there’s a logic to it. If this is how he meant it to read, well, he’s got bigger issues than stupid boring pointless crossover arcs to worry about because this one is troubling-ly terrible.

Until this week I honestly had no idea that Crankshaft was just as full of contrived drippy pathos and attention-seeking melodrama as FW is. And here I thought it was all gags about the elderly and dumb malapropisms, but it turns out that’s merely half the story. It’s just like FW except instead of constantly whining about getting old, the CS characters already ARE old. It all makes such perfect sense now.

This. Weak.

Link To Today’s Strip

What could be worse than another Dinkle band convention arc? Ordinarily the acceptable answers would be “Les” or “nothing”, but today BanTom has a wild card up his sleeve in the form of that stupid f*cking bus-driving asshole Crankshaft, once again in retcon form. He JUST DID one of these horrible Crankshaft retcon jobs and it’s WAY too soon for another one now. I really hate Crankshaft and not in a fun “I can’t believe this still exists” kind of way, but like I hate yellow jackets at picnics and garbage juice dripping from the bottom of a full trash bag and pus seeping from an open wound. I try to encounter it as little as possible and when I accidentally stumble across it I’m instantly disgusted.  I’m never going to read it so stop trying to make me, OK? Nice “punchline” too, by the way.

As far as Becky goes, the sleeve is doing all the talking for her today. I told you, he never, ever passes up a chance to draw that sleeve. The Arm…never forget. Poor poor Becky, definitely one of the strip’s more downtrodden characters. She doesn’t really like her job, she’s married to a comic book store owner and she’s still always being overshadowed by Dinkle and his interminable stories. Plus there’s her mother, Wally and the arm thing too. She can’t even really smirk correctly either. It’s really quite a brutal legacy.